Setting up Virus TI for Pro

Tools
A basic guide on how to connect your Virus TI with Pro Tools. Includes additional
background information and troubleshooting tips.
Setting up ProTools
Here are a couple of tips and tricks on how to use the Virus TI together in Avid Pro
Tools 7 LE, M-Powered and HD. The aim of this Tutorial is to show you how to set
up the Virus Control in Pro Tools, and work in the most productive way.

1 - Configure the Playback Engine

Firstly, there are a few user-settings which are crucial in order to make the Virus TI
work seamlessly in Pro Tools.

Open Setup > Playback Engine you will see the following page: We recommend a
CPU usage of 85% and to tick “Ignore Errors During Playback/Record” for the
RTAS engine.
Pro Tools|HD users should set the Delay Compensation Engine to “Long (4095
Samples per channel)”. Pro Tools LE and M-Powered users should use the Delay
Compensation plug-in to compensate for the omitted delay compensation feature of
their Pro Tools versions. HD user need to make sure that “Delay Compensation” is
ticked within the Option Menu.

We recommend a H/W Buffer Size of 256 or 512 samples. Buffer sizes of 2048 or
higher may lead to synchronization problems.

2 - Load the tutorial song

Locate the Pro Tools tutorial song which is located in the documentation directory
within the “Avid Pro Tools” folder.

Depending on your system configuration Pro Tools will notify you that the tutorial
project was created with different Avid hardware.
You’ll see an Arrangement page which contains 9 sequences set to control 9 MIDI
channels, all of which feed into the Virus Control plug-in.

Press Play and you’ll hear a 32 bar multi-part arrangement coming out of your Virus
TI and streaming into Pro Tools. If you don’t hear anything, check if the Virus
Control plug-in displays a warning page and check if your Audio Interface is cabled
correctly. The tutorial session routes the output of the Virus to Analog 1+2.

3 - Examine how we have built the tutorial song

The session consists of 9 MIDI tracks which all send MIDI data into the “Virus TI”
instrument track. The MIDI tracks have a purple indicator, the Instrument track is
orange.
In contrast to many RTAS plug-ins, you cannot instantiate 16 copies of the Virus
Control plug-in to control the 16 Parts of the Virus TI. Just the one instance of the
Virus Control plug-in allows you to communicate with all 16 parts of the Virus TI. It
is therefore important that you take care to set the MIDI channels correctly,
because these determine to which part you’re sending the MIDI data. In Pro Tools
the MIDI Output Selector connects a MIDI track to an Instrument track. Once you
have setup your Instrument track and the Virus Control is instantiated a folder
called “Virus TI” will show up in the MIDI Output Selector. All you need to do is to
connect the MIDI tracks to the Virus Control using the correct channel assignments.
4 - Recording and playback
When working with Audio Interfaces and Plug-ins, latency is introduced. In general,
the good news is that most modern sequencers compensate for this latency once a
track is played back. The bad news is that often you have to record your
performance while feeling the latency, which most people consider to be rather
uncomfortable.
While recording, we recommend that you switch the Main Outs (Virus Control >
Common Page) of the part you are about to record to Analog 1+2 instead of USB.
This way, the audio data doesn’t need to travel from the Virus TI into the Virus
Control
and from there to your audio interface; instead, it’s being sent straight to the Virus’
analog outputs. Once you have finished recording this particular track switch the
Main Outs back to USB to allow this part to be fully latency-compensated.

One advantage of the Virus TI’s analog outputs is that once a part makes use of
them, you will enjoy a lightning-fast response, similar to the zero-latency feature on
some of the better sound cards.

Host Based Pro Tools Systems only: Pro Tools LE and M-Powered users also
need to take care of latency compensation manually. Here’s how it works:

The Virus TI introduces a static latency which you need to compensate for by using
a Time Adjuster Plug-in which can be found in Multi Channel RTAS > Delay. You
need to dial up the Time Adjuster Long plug-in and position it on all tracks apart
from the one the Virus Control plug-in sits on. Next you need to find out how high
the actual latency is. The latency will stay the same

as long as you don’t change the session or change Playback Engine settings. To
find out about the actual latency, simply Ctrl + Click (Win) or Command+Click
(Mac) on the Vol/Peak/delay view below the track fader in the Pro Tools Mix
window. Once you have found out the number of samples of delay, use the Digi
Rack Time adjuster plug-in to regain alignment in between all the tracks.

Alternatively you can enable “Delay Compensation” in the Mix down View Selector
which shows the delay caused by every channel right underneath the mixer.

Pro Tools HD user should make use of the delay compensation feature instead.
To find out more about Delay Compensation on Pro Tools systems, go to http://
www.avid.com and locate the Technical White Papers within the support section.
Download the document called “Latency and Delay Compensation with Host-Based
Pro Tools Systems”.

5 - Automation
The Virus TI enables you to automate pretty much every feasible parameter using
Pro Tools’ parameter automation.
First, open up the Virus Control and right click on “auto” underneath the Bypass
button to open up the Plug-In automation window. Here you’ll see a list of all
parameters which can be automated. Note that the lists distinguishes in between
parameters and parts. For technical reasons all automatable parameters are listed
for all 16 parts which makes it a fairly extensive list. Once you have decided which
parameters you want to automate, select them and press “Add >>>” in order to
make Pro Tools’ automation recognize them.

Once all assignments are done, select the Automation popup of the Instrument
track you’re using for the Virus TI plugin. There will be a sub menu called “(fx a)
Virus TI” or similar. Within this menu you’ll find a list of all parameters which are
ready to be automated.

For further information on how to use Pro Tool’s automation refer to the Pro tools
Reference Manual which can be accessed within the Help menu of the Pro Tools
application.
6 - Mixing and Routing
You might have already spotted that the Pro Tools tutorial songs use the Virus
Control as a multi channel RTAS plug-in. In order to make use of the additional
audio channels you need to create an Aux Input object (Track>New>Aux Input).
Now switch to Mix view and assign the Virus Control’s individual outs.

Track 5 of the Tutorial session (“Dub Pad”) sends its audio to USB2 instead of
USB1. As a result Virus Control plug-in can output this particular part on an Aux bus
instead of the instrument’s main outs.You can switch the output assignment of a
part in Common > Output > Main Outs drop-down menu as shown in Step Four.
Now have a look at the VirusTI 3+4 Aux object in theTutorial session. This object
receives audio from the Virus Control plug-in. We instantiated two insert effects
(Long Delay II and D-Verb) on this particular audio object to show how you can
process individual Virus Control parts. Note that the Virus Control’s additional
outputs only show up in the Inputs of the Aux Object once you’ve instantiated the
Virus Control plug-in.

7 - Bounce to disk
Pro Tools offers multiple ways to record a certain audio output to an audio file on
your hard drive.
In order to achieve a usable result without dropouts and crackling, we recommend
using File > BounceTo > Disk.

As you can see, the tutorial session starts on bar 2. We recommend starting from
bar 2 in order to avoid undesirable side effects such as cut off transients at the very
beginning of the sound file and bad timing of the first MIDI notes. We also recom-
mend to set End Position a little later than the last note in order to avoid truncating
any reverb tails.
General advice, tips and tricks
Virus Control offers Volume and Panorama controls in the Part control section. Both
control are being overwritten by Pro Tools’ own Volume and Panorama sliders in
the mixer section.

In order to keep the MIDI data traffic as small as possible we recommend setting
Preferences > Mixing > Automation > Smooth andThin Data After Pass to
“more”
Legal Notice
This manual, as well as the software and hardware described in it, is furnished
under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such
license. The content of this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject
to change without notice and should not construed as a commitment by Kemper
GmbH.

Kemper GmbH assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies

that may appear in this book. Except as permitted by such license, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, by smoke signals or
otherwise without the prior written permission of Kemper GmbH.

Virus is a trademark of Kemper GmbH. All other trademarks contained herein are
the property of their respective owners. All features and specifications subject to
change without notice.

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support@access-music.de

© Copyright 2013 Kemper GmbH. All rights reserved. 19. Juni 2013 12:24 -
Document Revision VTILT2